While they all can perform the same basic features for Video/DVD playback, they all differ in several other aspects, but specially on:

What File Types they can play

How much Memory is used

What kind of performance is offered on playback (Startup/Load of Videos/DVD, etc)

Whether DVD support is offered

What zoom (aspect ratio) feature is offered

What is required to use it (External applications, hardware specifications and/or settings)

Note: CPU load is not focused on this thread because it mostly depends on the Codecs installed on the machine or used/selected by the video player itself.

Below, there's a table that shows some information on each player. You should base your choice of player on your specific needs, considering the hardware you have, what you are used to, and the features you'd like to have. You should follow the install information on the documentation for each video player.

Ideally, you should try each player until you find one that suits you best -- regardless of the tests results shown below (performed on a Intel Centrino 1.2Ghz Processor w/ 1Gb Ram).

Selection of Video/DVD players:

The choice of Video/DVD player is based on RR.INI settings:

videoplayer=
dvdplayer=

Leaving them blank (like above) or omitting the lines, will tell RR to use the Built-in Player for Video and MPC for DVD (as usual). If you want the SAME player for video and for DVD, you may only specify the videoplayer line -- as long as the plugin supports DVD playback, RR will use it as well, otherwise it will use MPC as fallback. If you want a different plugin for DVD than for video, you should add the dvdplayer line to set the desired DVD plugin. To use the built-in player for Video and specify a DVD plugin (other than MPC), you should omit the videoplayer setting (or leave it blank) and set the dvdplayer with your desired DVD plugin.

For Developers

If you wish to make a new Video/DVD player plugin for RR, you can do so (in any language that supports COM) by following the model of the WMP plugin sources available to download on this same post. You just need to replicate the functions described in the .cls file. There are very few functions required to make it work. You should be aware of the "NoZoom" setting from RR.INI and, if set to True, you should maintain aspect ratio of the Video/DVD for playback -- You can obtain this easily with the following code (typically used on the Class_Initialize sub):

IMO, the upside to VLC is that it can play most any video format with it's built-in codec's.

Sure thing, however, it is a downside when you want to add a specific filter or use options from your default filters instead -- just depends on what each person wants, thus why there are other options for video/dvd

does the video shuffle work in the newer version? Using the built in player in the previous version didn't really work and if it did, it shuffled my playlist around instead of jumping around on the playlist. It made finding specific songs a little bit troublesome.

does the video shuffle work in the newer version? Using the built in player in the previous version didn't really work and if it did, it shuffled my playlist around instead of jumping around on the playlist. It made finding specific songs a little bit troublesome.

Yes, current video shuffle just shuffles the videos upon loading (same as older versions) -- an understandably different effect than the music shuffle which keeps the songs organized and just jumps to different songs at the end of a track. Now that the video players have been re-worked, we can re-address that and add a "standard" video shuffle feature.

just installed the new version into my car and what an upgrade! my combo for video is vlc for video since it can take about any type of format and for DVD i'm using WMP. The playback is smooth/loads quick/subtitles work fine/and best of all, full dvd resume. I don't see how anybody can start watching a dvd and then switch off to use either GPS or watch music videos and then come back to have to restart the DVD all over again. Hands down, best upgrade evar! Thanks!!